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Thursday, June 15, 2017

The Soros Dilemma

More than once the question has been asked at this site and
elsewhere: If George Soros privately financed one million [insert your choice
of peoples from Africa, the Middle East or Central Asia] immigrants into your
county (county, not country), would you – as a libertarian –
object?The point being, privatized
massive immigration of people from a completely different culture: yeah or nay?

Let’s call this the Soros dilemma.In my experience, the question has usually
been ignored by advocates of open borders.

While reading One
Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate, by Tom
Segev, this question came to me.

Under the British Mandate, it strikes me that we have seen a
real-world experiment – the Soros dilemma put into action.Sure, there was nothing “private” about the
significant immigration of Jews (mostly Central and Eastern European in
culture) into a land primarily populated by Muslims (mostly Middle Eastern in
culture).

But set aside the motive force and the source of
funding:what is there in this situation
that is not coincident with the aforementioned Soros thought experiment?A wealthy, powerful outside agent driving a
significant immigration of people; people from a completely different
background and culture from those who are already native.

Over the course of twenty-five
years during the Mandatory Period, the number of Jews in Palestine increased
from about 84,000 to 640,000 – almost an eight-fold increase.The Christian population doubled, from 71,000
to 143,000, as did the Muslim population, from 589,000 to 1,181,000.The percentage of the total population that
was Jewish increased from slightly over 10% to about one-third.

In twenty-five years.

How did that work out for the Palestinian Muslims and
Christians?Not well, not well at all;
but you already know that.We know the
story and the story is continuing to this day; but you already know that as
well.

To my point: the motive force and method of funding is
irrelevant; George Soros could provide both today (and many believe he is).So the question stands: is there a reason for
a libertarian to object?Strictly
applying libertarian theory, it seems difficult to object to a George Soros
proceeding in such a manner.

But is it so difficult?I have asked before: does an invasion always have to be armed?Is it always obvious when you are under
attack?Certainly, the Jewish immigrant
wasn’t openly armed; such immigration would not be classified, traditionally,
as an attack.

Are libertarians not allowed to defend against an attack?

So what does libertarian theory have to say about this, the
answer to the Soros dilemma?I believe the
NAP offers an answer, and one counter to what open-borders libertarians
believe.Or, it doesn’t offer an answer –
therefore leaving us to look to other guides for an answer.

But if the answer to the Soros dilemma for libertarians is
that it is perfectly acceptable under the NAP for Soros to finance the
immigration of millions, well, we have Palestine.

Conclusion

In Palestine, the British finally came to the realization of
what those who lived in Palestine – Arab and Jew – knew was a possibility, if
not certainty, from the beginning.There
was only one way that this story could end:war.

To conform to the NAP, additional elements are required, I suggest: all property is private; property owners can discriminate; governance relationships are voluntary - not subject to democratic vote but subject to the property owner's voluntary choices. These off of the top of my head.

Given that we are not living in such a world, given that we are living in this world, my question remains: if it doesn't violate the NAP, are you willing to be a Palestinian Arab? To gift this future to your children and grandchildren?

As the day progresses - and even now - you will see other considerations in this comments thread.

I offer a couple of questions:

1) Knowing what you know today about what the Balfour Declaration and all subsequent corresponding actions taken by outsiders regarding Palestine, if you could go back about 95 years, what would you advise the locals?

2) Immigration or invasion? Is the only difference the presence of helicopter gunships?

Sorry, I'm trying to do some more reading...I've always only ever contemplated the NAP in a black/white moral argument context. As I think about your questions, it seems necessary to violate the NAP in order to avoid the Palestine outcome. I'm sure I could be wrong since this is the first time I'm really even thinking about such things. So I'm trying to read about it for the first time before wasting more of your time :)

"I've always only ever contemplated the NAP in a black/white moral argument context."

One reason I have written so much on libertarians and culture is that there is no black/white except at the extremes. Relationships inherently are mostly gray. We are humans, not computer programs.

"As I think about your questions, it seems necessary to violate the NAP in order to avoid the Palestine outcome."

As is is acceptable within the framework of the NAP to discriminate and exclude (for any reason or no reason), it seems to me it is also acceptable that a group of people can voluntarily come together to discriminate and exclude (for any reason or no reason).

"As is is acceptable within the framework of the NAP to discriminate and exclude (for any reason or no reason), it seems to me it is also acceptable that a group of people can voluntarily come together to discriminate and exclude (for any reason or no reason).

Or would this be a violation of the NAP?:

100% agree, would NOT be a violation of the NAP.

I'm struggling in the context of today's world...

"If George Soros privately financed one million [insert your choice of peoples from Africa, the Middle East or Central Asia] immigrants into your county (county, not country), would you – as a libertarian – object? The point being, privatized massive immigration of people from a completely different culture: yeah or nay?"

For me to say it's right for Libertarians to object to this move and to petition the State to prevent this act, on the surface does seem to violate the NAP (right?). And it seems like I would be violating the NAP based almost on pre-crime assumption of what I "think" will happen if this Soros-event occurs. Doesn't that seem like a philosophically slippery slope?

However, at the same time, I can see the reasoning that a likely bad outcome will be had if the Soros-event occurs...an outcome that would lead to violence/less freedom/etc.

Violate the NAP to save the NAP. Violate Rights to save Rights. The Ends Justify the Means.

Ultimately, there is no NAP-consistent answer to borders and immigration in a world with state borders - this is the wall you are butting up against. This is the dilemma. There is no getting past this.

Because the state controls borders, my neighbors and I are disallowed from pursuing a market solution that conforms to our wishes - in fact, I will be sent to prison for doing so. Where is OUR libertarian answer?

The only manager of the border is the state, as long as there is a state. As Block himself requires: to be a solution consistent with the NAP there must be open immigration and full private property rights.

There are plenty of libertarians that happen to be Jewish that can find no aggression in the actions of Jewish settlers in Israel and the occupied territories. The same libertarians say that stopping an immigrant invader at the border of a western country (not Israel) is a major human rights abuse.

Anything I suggest will have at least shades of NAP violation within it, given that we live in a world of state borders and absent private property rights.

At least I am honest enough to admit this - the open-borders libertarians I have read have never been honest on this regarding their position.

I start with the basics:

1) there is no NAP without property rights. Every other discussion both rests on this fact and is dependent on achieving this fact - otherwise, we have less-than-libertarian solutions.

2) No one has a right to enter; they have a right to exit. Therefore, no one has a right to immigrate; they have a right to emigrate.

3) It is lawful within the NAP for me to manage my borders - meaning my private property. Therefore it is lawful for me to both join together with my neighbors in a common cause and to hire an agent to act on my behalf in this regard.

Now, a good libertarian theorist can poke holes in much of this - so can I, and better than most.

But these are the basics, and all we are left with is how these can be applied in a world of state-managed state borders.

"Do we advocate things that violate the NAP b/c we are left with no other option?"

Open borders libertarians do this every time they write or speak - why are they allowed to do it but those who feel otherwise are not?

"Ultimately, there is no NAP-consistent answer to borders and immigration in a world with state borders - this is the wall you are butting up against. This is the dilemma. There is no getting past this."

I agree. This statement also reminds me of the whole quandary surrounding voting. It seems to me that many libertarians insist that there are right and wrong answers about what to do in this regard. I disagree. Some responses may be preferable to others, but there is simply no black and white solution available to us.

NAP tell us nothing about "objection". It is about initiation of force. If PincoPallo financed immigration of one bilion people from wherever privately (admitting that this is possible without state), as a libertarian you are bound by the NAP to not aggress against him. You are not bound to agree, or to be happy. You are not bound to be passive. You can do everything you want, to show your disagreement. You can boycott Pinco Pallo, and raise everyone against him, untill you are not violating the NAP. But what about you? what are you alluding to? are you calling for State intervention? for NAP violation? for aggression against private property? What about other right libertarian? are they refusing the NAP? True is that in a privatopia it will be very difficult to realize your scenery. It is only with the help of the State that Pinco Pallo could bring here that people.

I write no such thing. I am asking a question, and in response you give me a dozen questions.

Given that we are not living in such a world, given that we are living in this world, my question remains: if it doesn't violate the NAP, are you willing to be a Palestinian Arab? To gift this future to your children and grandchildren?

I am asking the question, not answering it. You answer it.

Those who advocate for open borders in this world - given that we cannot discriminate by force of law, given that all property is not private, given that my property is subject to the vote of others - refuse to answer the question.

If you bring one milion people here to live on the welfare, you are not privately financing anything, you are using tax dollars, so you are violating the nap. If you bring here people to do political activity, as a constituency for your political party, you are violating the nap: politic is aggression. Libertarians want to abolish welfare, and majority rule too. Democracy is a kind of totaliarianism, no right of sort is safe under that sistem. If you respect private property you have to abolish welfare and democracy, but on the same principle you have to let people use their property as they like, also rich jews as Soros. But it is not so easy to bring here one milion people under NAP, it is easy to bring them here under statism. The nap is formally only a legal priciple that can't live in his own.. but a society coherent with it is a society where every relation between people is volountary, so it requires to pass through the consent of others. It bound you to others: without welfare, subsidies, protectionism, prohibitionism, and every other kind of political interferences you, and Soros too, will depend on other people agreement, much more than now. Nap is not disorder, but an other kind of order. That tell us something about the culture, the morals, the habits, the mentality that a society more coherent with the nap will produce. This change of paradigm is what libertarianism is about. If you use te state against Soros you will not change paradigm. Many times a change of the establishment, has not bring more liberty. Also October revolution was a change of establishment, so to hate the establishement is good, but as Rothbard always used to say libertarians hate the State. Many here seems to love the state but only want a different orientation of statism..

You fail with your earlier response, and now instead of dealing with that you completely ignore my objection and move forward - as if the earlier exchange never happened. This is not honest.

"That tell us something about the culture, the morals, the habits, the mentality that a society more coherent with the nap will produce."

This might be one of the more naive comments I have read.

You have it backwards - it takes a society with a certain culture, morals, habits to live under something approaching the NAP. My exploration through this topic (with a push from a couple of regular visitors) has brought me to this reality.

"Many here seems to love the state but only want a different orientation of statism."

As I said to you in my earlier response - which you dishonestly ignore - I write no such thing.

Why do defenders of libertarian theory and open borders almost always ignore direct conversation and honest dialogue and debate? Anonp, you are well qualified to answer this question.

I have not glossed on your objection, I glossed on your bad reading of what I wrote. I wrote "as a libertarian YOU ARE BOUND BY THE NAP to not aggress against him. YOU ARE NOT BOUND TO AGREE, or to be happy. You are not bound to be passive. You can do everything you want, to show your disagreement. You can boycott Pinco Pallo, and raise everyone against him, UNTILL YOU ARE NOT VIOLATING THE NAP.

I was clearly speaking of what imply tne NAP, and referring to the situation under the nap. After I have wrote to you in many ways that we are not under the nap, that if Soros bring one milion people here today he is violating the NAP. My point being that the NAP is not so poor as you picture it, but that your example is misleading.

You don't need to question the nap to address the problem of a Soros paying for milions coming here, today.

Under the nap you can discriminate. Then call for the right to discriminate. And for the abolition of welfare and democracy, or - second best - for the exclusion of immigrants from welfare and vote. (But the right to discriminate is yours as it is of Soros, and the same can be said for the right to use yours private property as you see fit.)

Liberty of association is the ibertarian position. Than if you are libertarian call for liberty to discriminate, abolition/limitation of welfare, abolition/limitation of vote. Not for a state intervention against the free use of private property.

I'll make an example. Democracy is a totalitarian system, so libertarians are against it. If you see the problems with democracy, but call for dictatorship.. yes you are addressing a real problem, but you are presenting a non libertarian solution.

So it is for forced integration: yes you are addressing a real problem, but you are not presenting a libertarian anlisys and solution. If Soros "privately financed" one milion people coming here, taht is compatible with the nap, but Soros today is not financing privately anything. If he bring here people, he is doing it counting on political means. He put those people on welfare.

You have all the right to close your home, your shop, your factory, your wallet and all your properties to everyone you want. But you can't impose your thoughts on culture, security, etc.. with aggression on others.

XXX have all the rights to live following his thoughts. As a libertarians I say that it is not you, or the State, or a central autority that must judge, but the free market. XXX must have freedom and responsability and measure his actions in the market framework, against other people thoughts and actions, discriminations and reactions.

"Why do defenders of libertarian theory and open borders " that is an other example of bad reading.. I never mention open borders. You put that label on me. I'm not for open borders, in the present situation.

“I was clearly speaking of what imply tne NAP, and referring to the situation under the nap.”

I was clearly speaking of THIS world, not la la land. You clearly understood this earlier in our dialogue, as you asked if I would call for state intervention. How could I call for state intervention in libertarian theory? LIBERTARIAN THEORY OFFERS NO POSSIBILITY OF A STATE.

I may later come back to the rest of your comment. For now, this is enough.

The NAP is a legal framework. It can't solve cultural problems. There are issues that don't violate the NAP, yet are still real issues. What framework, if not the NAP, can we apply to solve these issues?

Many of us consider Soros to be evil. That's a moral judgment. Yet if Soros isn't violating the NAP, how can we call his actions evil? Unless there is a higher law of which the NAP is an imprint, a mirror, but not the higher law itself.

Many of our cultural problems are the result of engineering by our enemies. They are playing by the rules and haven't "agressed" in the NAP sense of the term. Yet they are destroying everything. They own the media, Hollywood, the political class, and the academy.

All OK under NAP!

Yet if someone proposed an effective solution, like I dunno...sending the people in question to non-voluntary summer camp for an indefinite period, alot of libertarians would throw a fit.

The NAP requires the term "aggression" to be defined. Many will say that the only place to draw a solid line is physical aggression, else the NAP is rendered meaningless - yet even this definition isn't completely free of gray.

Rothbard (in his later years) has offered (paraphrased): spouting theory without consideration of the ramifications in the real world is for dummies.

We want to think of aggression in three dimensions: height, width, depth. Perhaps Rothbard is suggesting we might want to think about a fourth dimension - time. To do so, we must consider human nature in the equation.

Where along that fourth dimension did Jewish immigration into Palestine turn into aggression? We cannot pick a moment, we only see the result - the reality that it happened.

I have seen those who prefer the early Rothbard - much more hard-core, plumb-line. What happened to him in his later years?

I say, the man developed basically the entirety of libertarian theory from scratch; I don't hold it against him that it took him some years to fully get from point A to point ZZ.

Soros is openly financing rebellion in numerous countries, presumably to profit from it. He is also openly using/lobbying government to create laws favorable to immigrants and unfavorable to us. Finally, there is strong evidence he is financing violent groups around the country for similar reasons. He IS violating the NAP.

But to answer your question, even if it doesn't violate the NAP, I would support NAP violating measures to prevent the mass immigration you describe. However, there is an unfortunate shortage of measures available that would actually prevent it. Clinging stoically to the NAP, I can at least tell my wife, "I told you so", as the barbarians push down the gate..

This is another example of why the NAP is an incomplete rubric for today's statist world.

Because even if Soros (or someone else) paid for a million people to come here, he (presumably) would not financially guarantee them going forward, making them a potential liability to the taxpayer.

What's more, if the numbers were large enough, they could impact the political system in a way that is harmful to natives, as was the case in Palestine. If there were an ironclad commitment to a free society here, and a means for ensuring that immigrants had to support that type of culture, then the story could be different.

"This is another example of why the NAP is an incomplete rubric for today's statist world."

Even in a non-statist world, it is incomplete, but this is a discussion for another day.

On this topic, and in today's world, I believe it is more complete than open borders libertarians are willing to admit. In my dialogue with Walter Block, he offers the libertarian requirement is open immigration AND full private property rights.

Open borders libertarians ignore the second and embrace the first. Therefore, according to Walter, they advocate a non-libertarian position.

The NAP, (Smiths) has three triggers. The “initiating”, “advocating” and/or the “delegating” of aggression. By sheer numbers, one million anything (including statists) in my county (pop. 50,000 +) operating under the concept of “democracy” (mob rule) and with “state” ownership of the roads and commons, would seem to be violating at least one of the three.

"But is it so difficult? I have asked before: does an invasion always have to be armed? Is it always obvious when you are under attack? "

--------

Pardon the sloppy formatting, but I'd say these comments and this section of the title piece answer the question.

The indigenous side of the equation is neutered into compliance. The invaders are enabled by threats aimed at the indigenous. With such a good deal on their end, the invaders will call in more invaders, with greater numbers. This then pleads the case to see the indigenous displaced (Ask a Navajo what this is like, or a German or a Swede)

Not all wars need to be fought with weapons, and not all NAP violations need to be publicly funded to be considered aggression.

On the bright side, the indigenous folk have a future in selling replica revolvers and apple pie off of I-40.

A lack of context here allows Soros to appear NAP compliant in flooding any area with immigrants, regardless of existing political circumstances. However the context of every theory and its conclusion is “all of reality.”

That reality is of NAP non-compliant welfare states. All welfare states fail, degenerating into hostility and economic despair because in order to justify income redistribution, propaganda-led polarization is necessary. (because honestly stating socialism’s actual division, that of working tax payers and thieving tax suckers, would elect no one. ) The indoctrination necessarily divides the population into oppressed/oppressors stereotypes, inferring an oppression-caused inequality then used to validate redistribution as an equalizing process. Naturally, no one can equalize stereotypes; the attempt results in unjustifiable oppression for some, funding unfair favoritism for others.

My own conclusion is that inviting anyone at all into a welfare state is a cold blooded pursuit of the profits of ignorance. Soros, as do all politicians and their corporate buddies, rack up billions by manipulating the politics of enforced redistribution, to which a particular type of immigrant, the welfare seeking, are helpful in maintaining this tax and favoritism enhanced elite. Immigration is not necessary, however, experiments with iron curtains enclosing a socialist system also produced a wealthy elite pauperizing the rest.

Fundamental to this political chicanery is the claim that a government relationship is a necessary defense of person and property. The scam persuades a population to cede control of person and property to politicians, after which they have nothing to defend.

The NAP is simply a principled means to peaceful prosperity. It describes cooperative anarchy not libertarianism. Applied universally, absolutely nothing happens outside of cooperative agreements…that interaction actually is the desired peace and when exploitation is penalized,never rewarded, all individuals involved must create and trade goods and services to survive and thrive, a process infallibly increasing all inclusive prosperity.

The non-aggression principle is supposed to order society to mitigate aggression. However, because libertarians see capitalism as conforming to this principle they ignore simple facts.

One such simple fact people seem to miss is that predators, wealthy and intelligent predators, can find ways to exploit ANY legal system (especially when they exit within an international ethnic network of fellow predators). Just because capitalism means something peaceful to libertarians does not mean that others don't see it as a cattle farm.

We aren't going to reach a state where laws (NAP) allow us to forget about politics (friend-enemy distinctions). People like Soros have to be dealt with directly. They are simply an enemy. There is no magic society where enemies are forced to play nice. They need to be neutralized.

Soros is guilty of sponsoring genocide on several continents. He has many places to hide and operates with impunity on the international level.

The NAP says nothing about wealthy jews buying up property to use to advance their ethnic interests against the interests of the society. Therefore the NAP cannot deal with the real political threat of our time. At best its a good rule of thumb for civil law in a just society.

To be clear, a lot of what libertarians call capitalism I do agree with and it is in fact peaceful. The principle I object to is the idea that ANYONE can own any amount of property regardless of who or what they are. I would like to live in a society that excludes predators from owning anything important, using wealth to bribe their way into a position of power, or influencing the culture to weaken it to further predation (jewish cultural marxism).

The majority of people who talk about NAP are capable of living according to it. Consider how you might go about sabotaging such a society. This means putting yourself in the shoes of someone with malicious intent and zero scruples.

At least two fundamental principles of Western law had their origin in Mosaic Israel. The first principle was the rule of law itself: every resident was to be protected equally by the civil law. The second principle was open immigration. The nation’s treatment of the immigrant served as a touchstone in Israel of the nation’s faithfulness to the first principle.

Open immigration was an important means of evangelism. Strangers could come to Israel, settle there, buy houses in walled cities, become productive, and live in peace.

In ancient Israel, there was a national priesthood, which was assumed to be the primary agency of cultural assimilation for immigrants. This is why immigrants were allowed to become Israelites through circumcision.Political citizenship followed in three generations for Egyptians and Edomites, and in ten generations for Moabites and Ammonites. Confession, circumcision, and Passover were the initial means of assimilation. That is, the assimilation process began with religion. The same outlook long prevailed in the West, with the Christian church serving as the priesthood. The church was the primary means of cultural assimilation.

Uh, no! The ancient Israelites permitted strangers to live among them to the extent that they were made slaves.

“Thy bond-men and thy bond-maids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you: of them shall ye buy bond-men and bond-maids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land. And they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession, they shall be your bond-man forever.”—Leviticus 25:44-46

Xu, you will be better served if you actually read the Old Testament. Israel was to be a theocracy, with the option to ask God for a king like in the other nations.Preaching a different God in Israel was to be punished by stoning. An exception occurred when Joshua was deceived (Cp9) but the Hivites were just allowed to live among the Hebrews. False teachers and false prophets are to be killed.

Here are just a couple examples.

Leviticus 20:27 ‘A man or a woman who is a medium, or who has familiar spirits, shall surely be put to death; they shall stone them with stones. Their blood shall be upon them.’”

Leviticus 2413 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 14 “Take outside the camp him who has cursed; then let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him.15 “Then you shall speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. 16 And whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall certainly stone him, the stranger as well as him who is born in the land. When he blasphemes the name of the Lord, he shall be put to death.